What ideas does her Majesty's Treasury follow in those days to reduce
costs? First they asked 600000 people working for the government about
that, got 60000 ideas out of it (that equals one idea per 10 people
asked), processed them and put that into 31 proposals. Two of them deal
with Free Sofware:

8. In terms of spending less - what about migrating the whole of
government (the NHS, Education etc) from Microsoft products to Linux and
open source software like Openoffice.
(List 2

28. Annul the government’s agreement with Microsoft to provide software
and operating systems (OS) to government departments and switch to open
source software and Linux based operating systems. This would reduce
costs by: Reducing the need to update hardware in line with new
Microsoft OS releases. Linux OS and open source software has a lower
whole life cost and is less susceptible to viruses. Support a more
diverse spectrum of the IT industry, instead of one corporation;
generating additional UK tax revenue. (List
5)

Good they realise that Open
Standards are a step in
the right direction, but that in the long run you should switch to Free
Software to have the control over your computing and your data. Beside
explaining them the economical reasons for Free
Software, do not
forget explaining them the political and social issues involved, too.